1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a printing system capable of printing in two or more colors and to a printing control method for the same. This invention also relates to a printer capable of printing in two or more colors, and to a printer system and POS system using this printer. This invention further relates to a colorization setup device and a color data setting method for setting colorization information for producing color print data from a print command for monochrome printing. The invention also relates to a computer-readable medium storing or carrying a program for executing these methods of the invention on a computer.
2. Description of the Related Art
POS systems used at check-out registers have a printer for printing receipts. These POS printers print the name and price of each purchased product line by line on the printing medium, typically roll paper, and the printed paper is then cut and issued as a receipt. The customer receiving this receipt may later transfer product name and price information from the receipt to a home budget ledger, for example, to keep the ledger as a personal record of past purchases. Most such receipts are printed with one color, often making the printed content difficult to read. Errors can thus easily occur when transferring information from the receipt to the ledger.
In the last few years ink-jet and thermal transfer color printers for use with personal computers have become widely available. Color printers capable of printing two or more colors for use with POS systems are also becoming more common. Using these printers to print receipts in color can make the receipts easier to read and is thus desirable for improved customer service.
Many application programs used in POS systems, however, were formed assuming that a conventional monochrome printer would be used. This has meant that color receipts could not be printed by simply replacing the existing monochrome printer with a color printer because the application program itself must be modified for color printing. Changing the program is typically costly, and the financial burden on the POS user, that is, store, is thus great.
It is therefore desirable to be able to print color receipts with a color printer while continuing to use existing application programs that presume use of a monochrome printer.
In addition to text data such as product names and price information, such printers are also used to print images such as the store's logo. For the content printed to the receipts, it is usually necessary to print the store's logo and other such image data in the color specified by the store. It is therefore further desirable when printing color receipts to separately define how color is used to print text data and image data. It is yet further desirable for the user to be able to specify how and what colors are used for the color print data.